Timmy U

Yes, but this thread is preferable to all the other threads about crappy AAAA and over-the-hill types the Sox are dumpster diving for. At least thinking about trades provides a glimmer of false hope.

To make room for Flexen, Carlos Perez DFA.

Yeah, just kind of musing on the state of various farm systems. You brought up a quantity trade and that’s where the Yankees could do business, especially with pitching — see the Soto trade. I for sure would prefer a quality trade. Those are harder to come by as no one is trading you Holliday, Chourio, Caminero, Wyatt Langford etc.

For sure. I just don't think the Yanks would give all that up. I could see Dominguez OR Lombard, Hampton OR Warren and a couple of lower level lottery tickets, though. Personally, I'd steer clear of Spencer Jones. He could end up an All Star, but he has so many red flags, he could be a Joe Borchard.

Yanks are interesting. Yes, the top of their system (minus Dominguez) is very suspect, but in a quantity deal, they'd be competitive. Two factors: they have a great pitching development system. every year someone comes out of nowhere throwing 98 with wicked breaking stuff. And they always have the most volume when it comes to Dominican players. Kids from the island want to play for them, so they get a lot of good $50K signings. It's a weird system, for sure, but if you're doing a volume of complex league/lo A types, the Yankees have a lot.

Pallette signed for $1.5 mil. Anthony signed for $2.5 mil, $200,000 above what Boston gave their 1st rounder. Like has nothing to do with it.

It was rumored that the White Sox were on Anthony before the draft. He's a good-looking young hitter. Not a centerfielder, but I think his upside is higher than Cowser and he's a better athlete than Kjerstad. That said, probably 2 years away.

I will point out these are the White Sox we're talking about.

It's gonna be Gavin Sheets, right? Let's all just prepare ourselves, it's gonna be Gavin Sheets.

What I find interesting for the O’s is that they won the division pretty easily even though Tampa was +66 on them in run differential. That is a hard stat to do 2 years in a row. Now, you can argue that the O’s farm will make a difference. Do not sleep on Tampa’s top guys. I have seen him swing the bat a lot and Junior Caminero is one bad mfer. I think O’s need to improve to stay the same.

I thought Tim Hill was going to be nadir of how bad the dumpster diving would feel this off-season, but Getz dug deep and found another gear.

Hard pass on Fabian. First year at a low level was a mirage. His swing and miss is a fatal flaw. I doubt he ever gets 100 AB’s in the majors.

Cowser’s problems have been hitting spin, I believe, not velocity. And that does concern me. As we’ve witnessed with Vaughn, if you cannot hit spin, you’ll see plenty of it.

I have watched 40+ AB’s from Gonzalez since he signed. I would be shocked if he hits. At all. The swing is really really unorthodox. Now, I get it, he was concentrating on hitting the ball to left after being a dead pull hitter in college and he cannot hit like that. Almost everything to the opposite field was a blooper/weak pop up. He has great strike zone awareness, so maybe he goes back to being a dead pull hitter and contributes that way. Defensively, he’s a lot like Montgomery: smooth, makes the right play, not awesome range, and sometimes his internal clock is too slow. If he hits, it’s playable. I am just not confident he’s gonna hit.

I agree that the O's have the #1 farm system, no doubt. But it shows what a crapshoot all of this is that 3 of their top 5 prospects -- Basallo, Kjerstad, and Mayo -- all have significant 1b risk. Finding middle of the diamond players like Holliday, or for that matter Luis Robert, is pretty dang hard.

I gotta say, this board sells Quero short on intangibles. He works well with pitchers and extremely savvy. The questions with him are measureables. He's not a big guy and the tools don't really pop other than possibly the hit tool. But he really knows how to play the game.

Neither the Hill or the Maldonado signing makes a whit of difference, really. But it's really depressing to watch a crappy team stock up on crappy 30-something players so you can't even root for player improvement. Best case scenario is watching a bunch of journeyman do better than expected so you can flip them in the deadline. I'm getting the sense that 2024 isn't even Year Zero of a rebuild. 2025 will be that after they can get out from under Moncada and Eloy's contracts. Realistically, this team may not be competitive until 2027 or 2028.

We should. Although I think for this year a blindfold will be more useful.

If hitting .070 in 70 ab's or hitting .180 over a 2-year period makes you viable, it is hard to say who does or does not clear the very low bar to be a starting catcher in the majors these days. Seby Zavala had very good defensive metrics and ran into one now and again, the Sox released him. Hackenberg is never gonna be an impact bat, but the arm is a howitzer. Is he viable? Turner throws well, is a leader and hits lefty. Could he be a late bloomer? I think when Stassi and Maldonado are what you're aiming for, it's gets hard to rule anyone out as a possibility.

Rankings are meaningless until the Sox fix their development system and get at least one core competency. Historically, they have been bad at drafting, hitters never improve in their system, and their pitching development has been questionable at best. Montgomery and Schultz gave me hope for their drafts, but picking Gonzalez collapsed that for me. For my money, they are one of the three worst orgs along with KC and Colorado until proven otherwise.

If a volume deal was going to get this done, it would have been done at the deadline. Sox need at least one impact player in a Cease deal. The O’s don’t want to be a counterparty in a deal like that. I simply think these two teams are not a match

I think when you're headed into a bunch of losing seasons, you gotta go for upside. AJSS is a fast riser with ++ stuff. If it goes South, he's a reliever. If he hits, he's a top 3 starter. Ortiz has a high utility risk. Even if he hits, he's a second division regular. Yawn. Plus, by the time the Sox are any good, he'll be like 29. The two are simply not comparable to me.

Interesting. It really depends on how you evaluate Caissie. No one hit the ball harder than he did last year, but that is a big swing. If you believe in the bat, go for it, but he has a gigantic bust potential. I've watched him play some and I'm really on the fence.

Who are the O's offering who's better than AJSS? It ain't Ortiz. So far, the two best players being talked about as being in packages being offered are AJSS from ATL and Chase Petty from the Reds. The Sox can only say yes to packages that are on offer. Just because the O's have players they won't give up who are better than those guys doesn't mean the guys they are willing to give up are particularly enticing.

I think we simply disagree on the player. Grissom has already hit in the majors and he's a good enough athlete to play either IF or OF. I don't like him as much as Cowser, but Cowser isn't available. I do not see a world in which Atlanta gives you BOTH Waldrep and AJSS. Obviously, getting both would be awesome. But I like AJSS a lot. If the Sox were that into Waldrep, they should have drafted him instead of Gonzalez.